Painting (another) Kitbashed Chaos Champion / On the new Army Painter Speedpaints

 This past weekend, I carved out some time to attack the 'unpainted' pile. Exhibit A is an interestingly kitbashed Warhammer Chaos champion. I bought this fella second-hand last year as part of an army of Chaos figures that draw heavily on kitbashing with (for example) Stormcast Eternal parts or even bits from 40k. This particular specimen combines a 'Nurgle'-style mutated maw-in-the-tummy with a very sci-fantasy-leaning mechanical claw arm (I'm *still* not sure where the arm comes from; something Necron, maybe?). 

I fancy myself an advanced Beginner painter, or maybe a Mega-Noob Intermediate painter, or something in there. Despite a few missed strokes I'm quite happy with this guy's overall appearance.

 

This was also an early opportunity to try out the new-ish Army Painter Speedpaint collection, a recent splurge. It seems these speedpaints are taking the mini-painting world by storm, so I have been eager to try my hand at them. The paint-job featured here combines several types of paint. When I acquired the figure, it was already wearing a sort of minimalist blue and gray coat of paint. 

To proceed, I first drybrushed with silver...

...and then got to work, laying down (mostly) speedpaints supplemented by 'regular', metallic, and blood-effect paints for some specific local touches. 

I decided to go for a hint that the guy used his bloody axe to pulp something, used the bloody claw to pick it up, and then fed part of it to the bloody maw in his midriff.
Ah, Chaos champions! No table manners at all. 

One thing that really strikes me is the impact of the undercoat color when using these translucent speedpaints. The green on this champion is 'Malignant Green' (the 'Nurgle' color), but it came out very dark on top of the blue basecoat. The mechanical claw is painted with Stone Golem, and I think it makes a very nice 'dull bronze' look - but it is exactly the same speedpaint color used to paint the bare, white bases on these 'just tabletop ready' sci-fi grunts from Reaper Bones!

...Slapping out three of these Reaper Bones grunts, including pre-work with silver touches here and there, took about 40 minutes total (!). This stuff is great for batch processing units. 

Although I can see that the Speedpaints require their own skillset, I'm quite pleased after my initial trials.